


Gift

by orphan_account



Series: When The Day Met The Night [4]
Category: Soul Eater
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 14:17:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1269535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“When’s your birthday, Crona?”</p><p>“I don’t have one,” he answers, resigned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gift

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this took a little longer than the others have! I had to figure out how exactly I wanted to plot out the next three, since they're going to lead up to something important.
> 
> Also it's CroMa Week on Tumblr, so if you're reading this, you should draw or write something for this wonderful ship and post it (:

**028\. Gift**

 

_\- September 26, 2009 -_

 

“When’s your birthday, Crona?”

Maka asks him as their group of friends stands in the busy school hallway chatting excitedly about their plans to celebrate Tsubaki’s birthday that night. She and Crona are sort of off to the side - they tend to do that lately, naturally, on their own accord - and she asks him in a voice that she’s realized is reserved just for him.

Crona seems more willing to answer the question than he usually is. He looks a little surprised that she’s asking, rather than nervous or upset.

He doesn’t look at her though. His cool, dark eyes are spacey, fixated on something far away.

“I don’t have one,” he answers, resigned.

Maka doesn’t think she should be surprised. However, she can’t imagine what it must be like not knowing your own birthday, not having anything significant to mark the passage of time. What would _she_ do? How would she count?

Maka quirks her lips to the side, thoughtful. “She...didn’t tell you when you were born,” she mentions. The _Medusa_ in “she” is implied.

Crona nods. He then finally looks over at her, eyes still washed over.

“I know that I’ve been here for fourteen years or so,” he says, “I saw that she had written it down somewhere once, but um, I’m not really sure what day." The _it doesn’t really matter_ that punctuates that quiet, little sentence is also implied, and Maka almost physically feels it.

“And I…” He pauses, arms covering himself slightly, voice more unsure. “I wasn’t really ‘born,’ she told me. She said that I was made.”

_Ouch._

Maka isn’t sure how to read the blank look on his face, or the sadness that she feels wanting to close in around her soul, so she smiles at him. Sympathetic, understanding, not needing him to say much more.

Crona smiles too, then shyly looks away, running a hand up and down his arm absently (and Maka feels a soothing heat press against her chest, and _there it is again,_ she thinks. Every time he shares something personal with her, she can feel his soul wavelength connecting with hers, sharing its positive energy and light and it’s all she can think about at the time.)

Though her face is flushed, and the feeling she gets from him is distracting, she continues talking.

“Do you want a birthday?” she asks of him now.

Crona frowns a little, and then lets out a small, confused laughed. “But that doesn’t make any sense, Maka...how could I have one?”

“Well birthdays aren’t really about the day you were born. It’s more having one special day a year that’s just about you, and having people around you to celebrate with. With that being said, it could be any day you wanna make it, really.

“And, it’s also about gifts,” Maka adds, smiling more. “I say there’s never a bad time to accept thoughtful presents from the people that care about you.”

Crona looks as though he’s pondering this in his head.

“What kind of gifts do you get on birthdays?” he posits.

“Things that your friends know you like,” Maka says. “Things that make you happy. Memories you can always remember.”

Crona watches Tsubaki and the others for a moment - watches the way they crowd around her, make her laugh, and how happy she’s looked today.

Still not looking at her, he says, “What’s the gift that’s made you the happiest, Maka?”

And Maka watches what he’s watching--the camaraderie of her friends, Soul, Black Star, Tsubaki, the others, how they’ll always have each other to fall back on no matter what happens--and gets a nice feeling just thinking about it.

“Having people in my life to share things with,” she states soundly.

Crona glances at her, gets that flustered look about him again, and has to look away before another smile begins to tremble its way across his face.

_I like sharing things with you, Maka…_

“We can come up with a birthday for you together, if you decide you wanna,” Maka says to him now, nudging him in the shoulder lightly with her own. “Just let me know, okay?”

He nods, though he can’t imagine accepting anything fancy from Maka if that day were to ever come. If anything, he should be giving her a gift for the way that she’s helped him finally come into the real world.

Maybe he will sometime soon?

“When is your birthday, Maka?”

She grins. “December 7th! We’ll celebrate that together too~”

(+)

There’s a small party at Kid’s house early in the evening that day - short, sweet, and with close friends-plus-Crona, since it’s a school night (and despite Black Star’s insistence that she get drunk on a Tuesday, Tsubaki wants to make it on time to class...she can’t say the same for him as she lugs him off of Kid’s doorstep, however). Crona is still a little distant from everyone, watching and observing rather than joining, getting flustered whenever he’s addressed, but he seems to have a good time at his very first birthday party. He makes a mental note of the presents that all of them gave to Tsubaki - they were personalized, and thoughtful, some bought from a store but others handcrafted, still others in the form of a poetic letter (Maka’s gift in particular).

He leaves early, a little too overwhelmed by an hour straight of socialization-plus-“borrowed” beer he doesn’t know how to deal with drinking. Once he’s settled in his dungeon room, and has managed to finish some homework without Ragnarok threatening to (or actually) eating it, Maka calls him through his mirror and asks if everything’s okay, if he’d like her to stay over again like she had the last couple of nights, to help quell his insomnia.

“As long as you two aren’t plannin’ on makin’  any babies!” Ragnarok interrupts before Crona can answer, “I’m in this body too y’know, and I don’t wanna deal with any fluids that aren’t Crona’s, that’s shitty enough already!”

(“Would you knock it off?!” retorts Maka, and Crona is so flustered [and confused] by the mention of making babies that he drops the mirror on the floor because of how badly he’s shaking from embarrassment.)

She comes over, tired from the long school day, and it’s not long before the two of them climb into Crona’s bed, and Maka gives a cheerful “Goodnight!” before setting her alarm to wake up long before classes. Maka sleeps as far over on the wall-side as she can, and Crona stays as close to the other edge as he can; and their bodies don’t touch. He still can’t sleep for most of the night, but not because of nightmares, or paralyzing darkness, or the fear that he may wake up tomorrow to find that this is all a dream: it’s because he’s too paralyzed by the fact that she’s there, that he even has a bed to begin with and that someone who cares about him is in it, he stares at her back, watching it rise and fall with her breath, and thinks: _don’t move. Don’t disturb her._

_She is real. Don’t do anything that might make her disappear._

For two hours, he’s wound tight, anxiously thinking of nothing more than actively trying not to move a muscle (and trying not to make any quick movements and noises that’ll trigger Ragnarok’s appearance). Then after that, he starts to relax some, tension relieving in his body...and Maka turns onto her other side in her sleep eventually, so that he can see her sleeping face in the lamplight.

He’s breathless, still motionless, but a sort of peace starts to make its way into his soul as he thinks about the day they had today, as well as all the others. Maka is my friend, she is real, he thinks, and she’s so good to him.

Sure, so Crona has never received a birthday gift. Or any gift wrapped in paper that is tangible, for that matter. But gifts are only given so that the recipient is happy, right? It’s not about what the gift looks like, or if it’s even tangible or measurable. Receiving a gift is about the feeling one gets from it, and well, Crona thinks: this feeling that he gets while being next to Maka, even when she speaks no words and when looking at him with those eyes, is irreplaceable, and he’s felt nothing like her thus far.

Crona will come to find that the fact that Maka was ever born, her existence alone, is a gift in and of itself.


End file.
